1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a medical image diagnostic system for making a medical diagnosis of a subject based on images obtained by a medical image collecting device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a medical image collecting device such as an X-ray CT scanner device (CT), magnetic resonance imaging device (MRI) or X-ray imaging device (XR), a plurality of image pictures of various objects (heart, stomach, head and the like) of the same patient are taken. In this case, the object (diseased part) is photographed by use of the various medical image collecting devices according to the diagnostic method. For example, the pictures are taken by CT, MRI or XR, or the pictures are taken by contrast enhancement. Further, the photographing portion may be divided into the chest, head, abdominal portion, anglo, and alimentary canal of a human body according to diseased portions. Therefore, a plurality of image pictures are taken for a single patient for different medical image collecting devices and different diseased portions. Thus, the obtained image data is stored in an image storing device such as a magnetic disk device.
In a case where a diagnosis is made for a patient and if a plurality of image pictures were taken by CT, for example, when the patient was present at the hospital before and the image data was stored, then the doctor compares images of the diseased portion taken at this time with the images of the diseased portion stored and makes a diagnosis based on the result of the comparison.
In this case, the doctor selects image data necessary for the diagnosis from the plurality of stored image data items to display the selected image data on a CRT display.
However, with the above diagnostic method, the doctor must select image data necessary for the diagnosis from the plurality of stored image data items to display the selected image data on a display. It is difficult and troublesome for the doctor to operate the device, and therefore, the doctor cannot concentrate his attention on reading and observing of the images of the diseased portion.
As described above, since the doctor must operate the device to select necessary image data and it is difficult and troublesome for the doctor to operate the device, the doctor cannot concentrate his attention on reading and observation of the images of the diseased portion.